Resolving conflict over salespeople’s brand adoption in franchised channels of distribution

Many franchise-based retail outlets offer both the franchisor-owned brand and brands of competitors or independent suppliers. As salespeople may influence customers’ brand choices considerably, an important concern for franchisors is how to raise salespeople’s selling preferences for the franchisor-owned brand. However, the channel administration literature suggests that salespeople may not automatically favor the franchisor’s brand over other brand lines. While a large body of research examines franchise–channel relationships, previous investigations have conspicuously overlooked this channel conflict. In proposing a conceptual model grounded in the behavioral sciences, this study analyzes how franchisors can induce salespeople to advocate their brand by fostering the intention to promote the franchisor-owned brand (IFOB) in customer interaction. The results of an empirical field study show that individual brand promotion depends on factors such as salespeople’s identification with the franchisor and their tenure with the organization, as well as on the franchisor’s prestige and administration of the franchise. Moreover, we find that franchisees’ IFOB transfers to salespeople, but only if franchisees display a charismatic leadership style. We discuss these findings in light of extant theory and empirical evidence and derive several managerially relevant implications for the administration of franchised retail channels.     

Consistent Probabilistic Social Choice

Two fundamental axioms in social choice theory are consistency with respect to a variable electorate and consistency with respect to components of similar alternatives. In the context of traditional non‐probabilistic social choice, these axioms are incompatible with each other. We show that in the context of probabilistic social choice, these axioms uniquely characterize a function proposed by Fishburn (1984). Fishburn's function returns so‐called maximal lotteries, that is, lotteries that correspond to optimal mixed strategies in the symmetric zero‐sum game induced by the pairwise majority margins. Maximal lotteries are guaranteed to exist due to von Neumann's Minimax Theorem, are almost always unique, and can be efficiently computed using linear programming.     

Investigating impacts of complex sampling on latent growth curve modelling

We investigate the impacts of complex sampling on point and standard error estimates in latent growth curve modelling of survey data. Methodological issues are illustrated with empirical evidence from the analysis of longitudinal data on life satisfaction trajectories using data from the British Household Panel Survey, a national representative survey in Great Britain. A multi-process second-order latent growth curve model with conditional linear growth is used to study variation in the two perceived life satisfaction latent factors considered. The benefits of accounting for the complex survey design are considered, including obtaining unbiased both point and standard error estimates, and therefore correctly specified confidence intervals and statistical tests. We conclude that, even for the rather elaborated longitudinal data models that were considered, estimation procedures are affected by variance-inflating impacts of complex sampling.     

钢桶螺纹盖机器人旋紧控制系统

为了解决人工操作或机械半自动化旋紧钢桶螺纹盖所带来的弊端,提出采用工业机械臂对其进行自动旋紧。运 用EtherCAT总线技术,通过CoDeSys开发软件,设计开发了一种机器人旋紧控制系统,使得机器人可以对钢桶螺纹盖进 行自动抓取、定位和旋紧,完成相应的工序。该设计实现了钢桶螺纹盖旋紧的自动化生产,提高了生产效率和加工质量。     

Assessing the relevance of higher education courses

The establishment of the European Higher Education Area has involved specifying lists of professional competencies that programs are expected to develop, and with this the need for procedures to measure how every course within a higher education program is aligned with the program's competencies. We propose an instrument for characterizing this alignment, a process that we call assessing the relevance of a course. Using information from the course syllabus (objectives, contents and assessment scheme), our instrument produces indicators for characterizing the syllabus in terms of a competence list and for assessing its coherence. Because assessment involves quality, the results obtained can also be used to revise and improve the course syllabus. We illustrate this process with an example of a methods course from a mathematics teacher education program at a Spanish university.     

Women and Poverty in Spain (1981--1991)

Social Indicators Research -